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To me, what it means to be a Banshee is the pride of doing a job well. Our mission was to provide the battlefield commander with timely, useable intelligence; to find and hold the enemy until larger units could be bought to bear. We conducted that mission exceedingly well.
My association with the troop began on March 30, 1969. I had already been in country for 5 1/2 Air Cav, a very similar unit stationed in IV Corps. When I arrived at the troop, I assumed I would continue as a slick pilot, But XO Major Garry Dolin had other ideas. He decided I was going to be the Platoon Leader of the Aerorifle Platoon. HOLEY MOLEY, me a grunt? I don't think so!
When I turned down the job, Major Dolin hit the ceiling. When he came down from a high hover, he made a decision which would change my life forever. He, for some reason, decided I would make a passable Scout Platoon Leader. Never mind that I had never even sat in a loach. Two weeks later, I was flying in the AO with the acting Platoon Leader, Carl Cvitkovich. I became an aircraft commander after one hour and a half flight!!
We spent the first half of April getting the rest of our aircraft and getting our feet wet in the Rung Rung and Elephant valleys. The third week of April found us moving into the Ashau Valley to support the 2 battalions that had been sent in to stem the tide of NVA flowing across the border from Laos. We shared FSB Ann with some 105 Artillery brought in by Chinooks. The infantry battalions were sweeping north toward the hills surrounding the dominant terrain feature marked on the maps as Dong Ap Bia.
Dong Ap Bia was a foreboding place even to the local tribes, who knew it as a kind of spiritual symbol. During the 2nd week of our sojourn in the valley, I was working my way to the top of the mountain, "loaching around", looking for signs of NVA activity. Either I or my observer (I'm not sure which) noticed that the mountain had a bad haircut. Just a few feet from the top was a trench that went all the way 'round. There were tunnel entrances going in from the trench into the mountain every few feet.
I remember thinking something like "Holy S----, What do we have here?" I called up Major Dolin in the C & C ship and told him what I was seeing. He got pretty excited. A few minutes later he came back on the radio and said "Rattlesnake is just a couple of klicks from the base of the mountain, I'll try to divert him to see what we have here". Rattlesnake was one of the battalions (3/187th?) that was conducting the sweep. In very short order, the whole third brigade was involved in one of the major battles of the Vietnam War; the battle which became known in the U.S. as Hamburger Hill. A few days later, I took a round in my fuel cell. When I noticed my fuel gauge was taking a dive, I headed back in to FSB ANN. On short final, I managed to douse one of the Cobra crews with JP-4.
Just three days later, Felix Knight was giving Steve Jones, who had recently volunteered to be a scout, his first ride in the AO. They became our first casualties. Thank goodness no one in the aircraft was killed! Five days into the battle we were awakened in our hootches at 3 A.M. by Jim Matthews telling us we were heading south on a little excursion to rescue the Americal Division That same night we gained the finest commander any unit ever was privileged to serve under; Major Garry F. Dolin.
Col Deloach, 2/17th commander, had called Major Dolin to headquarters to make him the commander (a job he had been doing unofficially since before the troop left the states), and at the same time, give him his marching orders south.
Marcus A. Pryor Stogie 43 B 3/17 1968 Banshee 16 B 2/17 1969| ABOUT | HOME PAGE | MEMORIES | PHOTOS |